I’ve been living in an orchard for the past 14 months, away from the city for the first time in my 41 years of growing, learning and weaving a web of urban friends and projects. Coming into the city has become a deliberate decision. I have become more mindful of how I bring myself, my contribution and what nourishes me. Sometimes my visits are about my software engineering professional experience and entrepreneurship, sometimes they are about culture and art, but most of the time I come back for education, caring and living in common. People introduce me most often as an environmental activist, but I consider myself an activist of conviviality looking towards the future with hope and trust that our collective intelligence and diversity are our best survival strategy.

Diana Marincu is curator and art critic, Artistic Director of the Art Encounters Foundation Timișoara, member of AICA and IKT. She received her PhD at the Bucharest National University of Arts in 2017, at the Art History and Theory department, with a research on the curatorial discourses about identity and From 2012 to 2018 she worked with the Plan B Foundation from Cluj and with the Paintbrush Factory. Between 2015-2017 she co-curated with Anca Verona Mihuleț the project in six parts The White Dot and The Black Cube, The National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest. 

In 2017, Diana Marincu curated with Ami Barak, the second edition of the Art Encounters Biennial in Timișoara, Life: A User’s Manual, that introduced a few themed chapters inspired by the novel referenced by the title of the edition, with more than 100 invited artists. In addition to the main exhibitions, the two curators dedicated a complementary section to the independent art spaces in Romania. In the framework of the Romania-France Cultural Season 2018-2019, she curated two exhibitions in France, accompanied by catalogues: Persona, MUCEM – Musée des Civilisations de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée, Marsilia (2019); Manufacturing Nature / Naturalizing the Synthetic, Frac des Pays de la Loire (2018).

Within the programs created for Art Encounters Foundation, Diana Marincu aims to strengthen the link between the regional artistic scenes, to establish artistic connections based on co-production, and to support the young generation of artists. 

Corina Bucea is a cultural manager with experience in project coordination, artistic production, cultural policies, and cultural mediation. She is the cultural development director at Cluj Cultural Centre, where she coordinates, since 2018, The Academy of Change, a programme dedicated to increasing the capacity of the cultural sector. She was one of the founding members of the contemporary art space The Paintbrush Factory (2009), where she worked as a manager in the first years of activity. She coordinated or collaborated with various projects representing Romania at the Venice Art and Architecture Biennale (2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2022). Between 2021 and 2023, she was part of the Timișoara 2023 – European Capital of Culture’s curatorial team as an education, mediation and Power Station strategy expert.

Tevž Logar (1979) works as an independent curator, editor and author. He has curated or co- curated a number of group and solo exhibitions and collaborated with institutions, galleries, collections and publishers, such as: Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Łódź; Moderna galerija, Ljubljana; The Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; Kunsthalle Praha; TBA21,  Vienna; The Ovidiu Șandor Collection, Timișoara; Kunsthalle, Bratislava; Biennial of Graphic Arts,  Ljubljana; Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rijeka; Ludwig Museum, Budapest; James  Gallery, New York; VOX, Montreal; Cooper Gallery, Dundee; American University Beirut; CAC  Geneve; Kontakt Collection, Vienna; National Gallery of Kosovo; Galerija Gregor Podnar;  Suprainfinit, Bucharest; Mousse Publishing, Milan; Routledge, New York; and Artforum, New  York. For the 55th Venice Biennial (2013) he worked as a curator of the Slovenian pavilion, while  for the 58th Venice Biennial (2019), he worked with the Pavilion of Republic of North Macedonia  as curatorial consultant and the Pavilion of Republic of Kosovo as a writer. From 2009 to 2014,  he was the artistic director of the Škuc Gallery in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and a lecturer in 20th  

Century Art History at the Academy of Visual Arts (AVA) in the same city. He was the  screenwriter of the full-length documentary Project Cancer: Ulay’s journal from November to  November (2013) and is a co-founder of the Ulay Foundation (2014) in Amsterdam, where he  now sits as a member of the Advisory Board. Since 2023 he acts as a president of the acquisition  board of NLB Bank SEE Collectionin Ljubljana, Slovenia. In 2014, he was nominated for the Gerrit  Lansing Independent Vision Award (Independent Curators International) in New York. He lives in  Rijeka, Croatia.

Ami Barak is an independent curator based in France. He has initiated numerous projects and exhibitions in France and abroad and has published numerous texts in the press and in catalogues. He was co-curator of the Romanian pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2011, co-curator of Life A user’s manual, Art Encounters Biennale Timisoara 2017 and curator of What Does the Image Stand For? Momenta, Biennale of Contemporary Image, Montreal, Canada and of Daegu Photo Biennale, South Korea in 2018, Ex-East, past and recent histories of the Romanian avant-garde, Espace Niemeyer, Paris 2019, Curated_by A causal loop, Charim Gallery Vienna, 2019, Mythos & Logos – Jecza Gallery Paris Photo, 2023, Diasporic, Cluj-Napoca, Centrul de Interes, 2023, Gardening lessons – 10 Tips for an organic garden, Casa Isho Art Encounters Timisoara 2024, Mimosa Echard, Sporal, Comenduirea Garnizoanei, Timișoara, 2024, Julije Knifer – Meanders without bonds, Casa Isho Art Encounters Timisoara 2024

Currently Artistic director (by interim) Art Encounters Foundation, Timisoara, Romania.

Former president of IKT – International Association of Contemporary Art Curators.

Raimundas Malašauskas has co-written an opera libretto (Cellar Door by Loris Greaud, Palais de Tokyo, 2008), co-produced a television show (CAC TV, Vilnius, 2004 – 2006), served as an agent for dOCUMENTA (13), released Paper Exhibition, the book of his selected writings (Sternberg Press, 2012), co-curated 9th Baltic Triennial of International Art (Vilnius, 2005), 9th Mercosul Biennal (Porto Alegre, 2013) and 9th Liverpool Biennale (2017). Another recent project was trust & confusion, an eight month long live art exhibition at Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2021). From 1994 – 2006 he worked as a curator at The Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius. Following his departure from CAC Vilnius he curated various projects worldwide: The Last Piece by John Fare (gb agency, Paris, 2007), Paper Exhibition (Artists Space, New York, 2009), Repetition Island, Centre Pompidou (2010), Into The Belly of a Dove (Museo Tamayo, Mexico City, 2010), Satellite Series 4 (Jeu de Paume, Paris, 2011), oO, the Lithuanian and Cyprus pavilions at the 55th Venice Biennale (2013), Fusiform Gyrus (Lisson Gallery, London, 2013), Meeting Points 8 (Brussels, Beirut, Cairo, 2016 – 2017), On Campus (Monash University, Melbourne, 2017), Rosalind Nashashibi, a solo show at Melly (Rotterdam, 2018). etc. Hypnotic Show has been his longest-lasting project (from 2008 on), an exhibition that takes place through hypnosis. The Clifford Irving Show dealt with notions of truth, identities and play — it lasted for 2 years: 2008 – 2010.

Marie Hélène Pereira is a curator and cultural practitioner from Dakar, Senegal. She was Director of Programs at RAW Material Company where she organized exhibitions and related discursive programs including the participation of RAW to “We face forward: Art from West Africa Today” Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester; ICI Curatorial Hub at TEMP, New York; The 9th Shanghai Biennial, Shanghai; MARKER Art Dubai (2013).

She co-curated Scattered Seeds in Cali-Colombia (2015-2017) and curated Battling to normalize freedom at Clarkhouse Initiative in Mumbai, India (2017). Pereira was a co-curator of Canine Wisdom for the Barking Dog – The Dog Done Gone Deaf. Exploring The Sonic Cosmologies of Halim El-Dabh at the 13th edition of Dakar Biennale of Contemporary African art (2018), as well as Still Present! – the 12th edition of Berlin Biennale (2022).

In 2021 she was selected as a recipient of the ICI Curatorial Research Fellowship – a Marian Goodman Gallery initiative conceived by artist Steve McQueen – in honor of the late Okwui Enwezor.

Pereira has a strong interest in politics of identity and histories of migration.  

Ioana Leca is a curator and cultural strategist, currently active as Artistic Director of Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art (GIBCA), where she is looking into testing possibilities for the biennial format to closely respond to its site and be a generous experimentation platform for artists and curators. Recent projects include the editions in 2017, 2019 and 2021 of the biennial, together with curators Nav Haq and Lisa Rosendahl, a series of public programmes on remembrance and memorialization in public space and in public discourse, as well as the contribution to the publication Biennials as Sites of Historical Narration (Mousse Publishing, 2022).

Curator, producer and cultural strategist, she was previously Director of NAU Gallery in Stockholm, and programmer at the Romanian Cultural Institute in Stockholm. Together with Hanna Lundborg she founded the nomadic curatorial platform Konstkontoret.

From from 2018 to 2023, Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy (she/her) was director of Kunstinstituut Melly in Rotterdam, the institution formerly known as Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art. In 2023, she was also a Mellon Visiting Lecturer in the Art History Department at CUNY Graduate Center in New York. Sofía regularly participates in jury panels and advisory committees. Among these are the 2023 Frieze Tate Acquisition Fund in London, the 2018 Hugo Boss Prize at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award in 2017, and the 55th Venice Biennial in 2013. Since 2022, she is a board member of International Manifesta Foundation.

Previously, Sofía was the curator of contemporary art at Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, a foundation with offices in New York and Caracas. She has also been director at Museo Tamayo in Mexico City; held curatorial positions in New York at Art in General and Americas Society; and worked as the artistic director and chief curator of the 9a Bienal do Mercosul (2013) in Porto Alegre. Additionally, Sofía has guest-curated exhibitions at several spaces and museums internationally, including CCA in Vilnius, Kadist Art Foundation in Paris, and MALBA in Buenos Aires.

Sofía was born and raised in Baja California, Mexico.

Cosmin Costinas (b. 1982, Romania) is the Senior Curator of Exhibition Practices at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, HKW, Berlin (since 2022). He was co-Artistic Director of the 24th Biennale of Sydney (2024); Director of Para Site, Hong Kong (2011–22); Artistic Director of Kathmandu Triennale 2077 (2022); co-curator of the Romanian Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale (2022); Curatorial Adviser of the Aichi Triennale (2022); Curator of Dakar Biennale 2018 – La Biennale de l’Art africain contemporain-DAK’ART (2018); Guest Curator at the Dhaka Art Summit (2018); Co-curator of the 10th Shanghai Biennale (2014); Curator of BAK – basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht (2008–11); Co-curator of the 1st Ural Industrial Biennial, Ekaterinburg (2010); and Editor of documenta 12 magazines, Vienna/Kassel (2005–07), among others. He has edited and contributed his writing to numerous books, magazines, and exhibition catalogues and has taught and lectured at different universities, art academies, and institutions across the world. 

Robertina Šebjanič (robertina.net)  is an artist whose work explores the biological, geo-political and cultural realities of aquatic environments and the impact of humanity on other organisms. In her analysis of the Anthropocene and its theoretical framework, the artist uses the terms “aquatocene” and “aquaforming” to refer to the human impact on aquatic environments. Her works received award, honorary mentions  and nominations at Prix Ars Electronica, Starts Prize, Falling Walls., Re:humansm.

 She exhibited/performed at solo and group exhibitions as well as in galleries and festivals, biennales, triennials, and museums (selection): ZKM (Karlsruhe), CCCB (Barcelona), ISEA2024 (Brisbane), Gallery Cukrarna (Ljubljana), Matadero (Madrid), WRO Bienalle (Wroclaw), Ars Electronica (Linz), Tribeca Immersive – Mercer lab (New York), Art Laboratory (Berlin), Eastern Bloc (Montreal), Laboratorio Arte Alameda (Ciudad de Mexico), MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art (Zagreb), MSUB – The Museum of Contemporary Art (Belgrade), MONOM (Berlin), La Gaîté Lyrique (Paris), Le Cube (Paris), +MSUM Museum of Contemporary Art (Ljubljana), Eyebeam (New York), Kikk Festival (Namur), CAAM – Atlantic Center of Modern Art (Grand Canaria) CCD – Centro de Cultura Digital (Ciudad de Mexico) re:publica (Berlin), a.o…

She lectured / talked / presented her works at events/venues (selection): Ocean Space – TBA21 (Venice), Stanford University (Palo Alto), UCLA- ArtiSci Center  (Los Angeles), UNAM – The National Autonomous University of Mexico  (Mexico City), ISEA2023 (Paris), Mare Conference (Amsterdam), Kikk Festival (Namur), ITMO University (St. Petersburg), Aalborg University (Aalborg), School of Arts – University of Nova Gorica (Nova Gorica), Re:publica (Berlin) a.o.

Loredana Peca is a researcher with 20 years of experience in molecular biology and training in genetic counseling. Passionate about spirituality, Dana is also a yoga instructor. The Covid-19 pandemic inspired her to spend more time in nature, organizing guided tours around Cluj, where she lives. These tours often include specialists from various fields, such as botanists, entomologists, and ecologists. Additionally, Dana works at a Montessori school, leads outdoor yoga classes, and explores the beneficial effects of spending time in nature on overall well-being.

Irina is part of the Academia Schimbării team, the platform of the Cluj Cultural Center aimed at enhancing the capacity of the cultural sector. She has experience in brand management and cultural communication, working with museums, art galleries, and publishing houses. Irina founded a Contemporary Art Circle at the high school in Târgu Ocna in collaboration with Asociația 37, where for 6 years she brought contemporary artists and designers, partnering with organizations like The Bauhaus Archive, the Museum of Design in Berlin, and the “Support Culture in Education” platform. She is convinced of the importance of cultural mediation, experimenting with various forms alongside the team at Asociația Da’ De Ce.

She is interested in creating consistent and easily accessible funding mechanisms for artists and cultural operators, as well as fostering long-term collaborations between cultural, educational institutions, and NGOs. She writes projects with the same passion she brings to fieldwork.

Bogdan became an activist when he realized that the current model of development (extractivist, productivist, consumerist, speculative) is pushing the ecological limits of the planet and placing human society on a “trajectory of overshoot-collapse.” He declares that he is convinced that the destruction of ecosystems, the extinction of biodiversity, the disruption of the climate system, and the depletion of natural resources (water, forests, soils) will transform social progress, cultural evolution, and democracy into illusory aspirations for humanity.

Therefore, he sees himself as a partner to all those seeking an alternative, sustainable, and resilient development culture that can respond to the real and legitimate needs of societies without compromising the “livability” of the planet.

Gavril Pop (born 1998) is an artist and cultural worker from Timișoara, Romania. He is interested in visualizing cognitive processes and knowledge formation practices. He is engaged in working with diverse audiences and researching archives and marginal histories. Together with various cultural organizations, he develops educational programs in the field of visual arts and natural sciences. As an artist, he has collaborated with independent spaces and other artistic platforms such as INDECIS, Kunsthalle Bega, Art Encounters Foundation (Timișoara), Galeria IVAN, Institutul Prezentului (Bucharest), and Niki e.v (Hannover).

Corina Bucea is a cultural manager with experience in project coordination, artistic production, cultural policies, and cultural mediation. She is the Director of Cultural Development at the Cluj Cultural Center, where, since 2018, she has been coordinating the Change Academy program, dedicated to increasing the capacity of the cultural sector. She was one of the founding members of the contemporary art space Fabrica de Pensule (2009), where she worked as a manager during its early years. She has coordinated or collaborated with various projects representing Romania at the Venice Biennale of Art and Architecture (2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2022). Between 2021 and 2023, she was part of the curatorial team for Timișoara 2023 – European Capital of Culture, as an expert in education and mediation & Power Station strategy.

Mimi Ciora is an artist and cultural operator with a multidimensional vision of art and education. A graduate of a master’s program in visual arts, specializing in Graphic – Material and Concept, at the Faculty of Art and Design in Timișoara, Mimi co-founded the independent artistic space Indecis in 2020, where she takes on the role of cultural manager.

Indecis is a creative, non-profit, and non-hierarchical refuge dedicated to promoting contemporary art and supporting artists from various fields, alongside implementing non-formal educational programs. Mimi’s artistic practice focuses on the delicate interactions between flora, fauna, fungi, and bacteria in relation to humans, highlighting the impact of human intervention on the environment and underscoring the subtle connections that unite us.

A graduate of the Faculty of Organic Chemistry at the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, the first part of her career focused on research, during which she also obtained the title of Doctor in synthetic organic chemistry. For the past 14 years, she have dedicated herself to the non-governmental sector. As the executive director and vice president of the Tandem Association and the C.S. Tandem Arena Association, she have designed and led over 15 social projects aimed at promoting the inclusion of vulnerable groups in society. In these projects, she have worked with and for visually impaired individuals, developing inclusive projects through art (theater and dance) and education, and creating audio and tactile materials accessible to both children and adults. During this time, she have gained extensive experience in interacting with blind individuals, establishing effective and empathetic communication with them, and understanding their needs and expectations.

Bianca Băilă is a grant manager and communications officer for Ştiinţescu Timișoara, a funding program developed in Timișoara and managed by the Timișoara Community Foundation since 2018. She is also a communications officer for the largest philanthropic fundraising event with a sports component in the western part of the country, Timotion – Timișoara Moves! An artist and urban gardener, Bianca views grant management as a laboratory with plenty of room for creativity, where connections are made between material resources and knowledge, and where courage is instilled where it is most needed to create positive change in education and for communities.

Marlene Herberth is an anthropologist and memory archivist. She showcases affective associations in projects aimed at disseminating ancient wisdom in contemporary culture while highlighting contemporary societal issues. Herberth works as a cultural producer and imagineer, curating interdisciplinary exhibitions at the intersection of craft, art, design, and architecture. Together with Alex Herberth, they are the creators of KraftMade Research & Lab, utilizing heritage techniques as a potential framework for a regenerative future. Focusing on woodworking, food, and textiles in restoration projects, historical reconstruction, performative objects, and storytelling mediums, she offers workshops and cultural sustainability experiences in rural Transylvania and internationally.

Eva Stein is an educator and curator. She studied German literature and journalism at Freie Universität Berlin and has been working at HKW since 1990. She was the initiator of the HKW programs Future Storytelling, 2014, and The Whole Earth Catalogue, Berlin Edition, 2013; editor-in-chief of Kultur öffnet Welten or Kompetenzverbund kulturelle Integration und Wissenstransfer (KIWit); director of three editions of Schools of Tomorrow, 2017-21; and co-curator of Reading Bodies!, 2019.

Tibor Hartel is a researcher at Babeș-Bolyai University, Faculty of Environmental Science and Engineering. Professionally trained as an ecologist, his research focuses on population and community ecology, landscape ecology, and biodiversity conservation. He initiated the ‘Remarkable Trees of Romania’ project, which culminated in a database of ancient trees in Romania and Law 97/2023 for the protection of Remarkable Trees in Romania. He has been among the top 2% of cited scientists in the world (2020, 2021, according to ‘Stanford University & Elsevier’). Recently, he launched a YouTube channel titled ‘Nature and People with Tibi Hartel,’ where he popularizes the science he practices.

Orsolya Gál has a background in architecture, fine arts, scenography, and puppetry. She is the co-author of the Selfie Automaton project, which represented Romania at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2016. In 2018, her video performance Short Essay on Uncertainty received a special award for image and sound design at the Incanti Festival in Turin. In 2014, she began an experimental project with moving plants, which materialized in the short film Etudes from an Inner Garden. Her recent projects focus on human relationships with the natural and material environment.

Maria Balabaș is a radio broadcaster at Radio România Cultural, a sound artist, and currently a PhD student at CESI focusing on ways of listening. She is a co-founder of the MINIMORUM Association, which initiates projects dedicated to the intersections of performing arts, ecology, and education.

Raluca Iacob is a cultural manager and public policy specialist with over 15 years of experience in cultural project management, monitoring and evaluation, strategies, analysis, and guiding cultural practices and policies. Since 2013, she has been involved in supporting partnerships between schools and cultural actors and in cultural mediation through consultancy, coordination of dedicated projects, conducting analyses, and documenting practices and policies. In 2023, she contributes to the design of the Creative Schools funding program, managed by the Timișoara Municipality Project Center, with which she has been collaborating since July 2022 as the coordinator of monitoring and evaluation processes for the Timișoara 2023 – European Capital of Culture program.

In the past 15 years, Sabina has been involved as a cultural manager and communicator in numerous projects within the creative industries: she worked in PR at Green Hours and the Jazz in Church festival, coordinated the ShortsUP short film festival and the film education projects One World in Schools and EducaTIFF, founded Romania’s first material library and a regional creative industries festival (CreativeEst), and was involved as an independent expert in the development of Bucharest’s cultural strategy 2016 – 2026.

For some time now, she has been super interested in generating conversations about the climate crisis through cultural projects. The coolest initiative on this topic is CULMEA: an environmental film festival for children and young people in Brașov, Romania, which reached its second edition this year.

Alina Teodorescu studied Art & Business in contemporary art at Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London, interior design at the European Institute of Design in Milan, and interior architecture and furniture design at Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism in Bucharest. She has participated in art and design projects in countries such as Mongolia, France, Thailand, China, England, Israel, Lebanon, Brazil, India, and Greece.

Initiated in 2017, In Context (www.incontext.art) is today a transdisciplinary learning laboratory through art and science as complementary ways of exploring the world. Here, projects have been developed in parallel, including contemporary art residency projects on themes related to the impact of humans on nature (generating a permanent international collection of 36 works), an experimental music festival (two editions), a permanent upcycling workshop for fabrics and furniture (www.lacentrala.com), and two of the resort’s abandoned buildings were converted into creative spaces.

Corina Bucea is a cultural manager with experience in project coordination, artistic production, cultural policies, and cultural mediation. She is the Director of Cultural Development at the Cluj Cultural Center, where, since 2018, she has been coordinating the Change Academy program, dedicated to increasing the capacity of the cultural sector. She was one of the founding members of the contemporary art space Fabrica de Pensule (2009), where she worked as a manager during its early years. She has coordinated or collaborated with various projects representing Romania at the Venice Biennale of Art and Architecture (2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2022). Between 2021 and 2023, she was part of the curatorial team for Timișoara 2023 – European Capital of Culture, as an expert in education and mediation & Power Station strategy.